


i've got my love to keep me warm

by cherylbombshells



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, because all i want from this show at this point is for them to be allowed to talk to each other, post No Exit, spoiler! i don't blame cheryl for everything!, this is basically just a bunch of dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 09:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17506136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherylbombshells/pseuds/cherylbombshells
Summary: Cheryl and Toni, the morning after, reflecting on the night before.





	i've got my love to keep me warm

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because none of the 3x09 fics I've read have really reflected my thoughts, so I decided to write one myself. If this week has taught me anything, it's that not everyone will agree with my interpretation of things, but there's other fics out there for you to read if you don't, so no hard feelings.
> 
> Thanks to endofdaysforme for giving it a quick read through, but all mistakes are my own.

Toni wakes up surprised she was even able to fall asleep, and finds Cheryl is already awake on the other side of the bed that feels bigger than it ever has.

Last night had been brutal and the aftermath had been silent; they’d gone to bed without saying much of anything.

It hadn’t been for any other reason than because they were both too worked up to do anything but stew in their own feelings, but as Toni stretches and gazes at her girlfriend, who probably slept about as well as she had, she can’t stand it any longer.

“Where’s your head at, babe?” Toni asks quietly, not wanting to break the mellow mood of the early morning, even with the little bit of tension that’s still lingering in the air.

Cheryl lolls her head to the side to look at her, and for the first time, Toni can’t read her eyes. “I should be asking you that,” she answers back just as softly, and while her eyes might not give her away, the strain in her voice is a little more revealing. “I should have asked you that last night, but I was...”

“I know,” Toni helps her out, because her girlfriend may know every fancy word for every emotion on the spectrum, but she’s not always great at identifying her own; Toni can venture a guess, though. “So was I. Last night was… awful. I wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it, anyways. I don’t think I could have. I was… really upset.”

Toni was feeling a lot of things - is feeling even more now - but _upset_ sums it up well.

“I know,” Cheryl replies shamefully, her eyes finally dropping their guard and letting Toni in. “I know you were, and you had every right to be. I was just so mad, TT, and embarrassed. He _humiliated_ us and that heightened my anger and I handled it all so very poorly.”

It would be a bold faced lie to say she hadn’t, and Toni would never lie to Cheryl, but she doesn’t blame her girlfriend, either.

Not many people would handle being attacked in front of a large group of people any better, least of all someone with the history and temperament of Cheryl Blossom.

“You did what you could, I get it,” she assures the redhead, laying her hand out in the space between them on the bed, palm up, for Cheryl to reach for if she wants to. “You did better than me, I couldn’t even talk without crying.”

Maybe things would have turned out better if Toni could have gotten a handle on her emotions enough in that moment to deal with Jughead, but she had been too upset to do anything but hold back her tears and stand with Cheryl as she desperately tried to save face for the both them, only to make matters worse.

Toni isn’t surprised that Cheryl doesn’t see it that way, though. “I keep replaying it over and over in my mind, and thinking of all these ways I could have handled it better,” she admits sadly, reaching over to place her hand in Toni’s. “I could have kept you from being kicked out with me, at the very least.”

“Babe, no,” Toni immediately tries to stop that train of thought in its tracks.

“I should have taken sole responsibility originally when he asked about it,” Cheryl continues without much pause. “The only reason I didn’t was because I was still under the impression he wouldn’t make good on his threat, I swear, TT.”

Her voice is suddenly more strained and desperate, practically begging Toni for forgiveness for something she doesn’t even really blame her for, and Toni immediately tugs on her hand and shuffles closer.

“Cher, I _know_ that,” Toni promises her, cupping her cheeks and ducking her head to catch her gaze. “I’m not mad at you, you know that, right?” Cheryl just worries her lip between her teeth and still won’t meet her eyes. “I was right there along with you breaking Jughead’s stupid rule, no convincing necessary. Hell, I was the one that told you about him pardoning Fangs; we _both_ thought he was bluffing when we broke into the Pembrooke.”

The truth of Toni’s words seem to finally get through to Cheryl and quell some of the guilt swimming in her eyes when they finally drift up, but it’s not gone completely.

“Still, I was foolish and reckless, leaving that mark,” she mumbles, nuzzling her face against Toni’s gentle hands.

“You were,” Toni admits kindly, a pained and regretful smile forcing its way onto her lips as she shakes her head. “But I was just as foolish and reckless for letting you; for thinking you’re hot when you’re being crazy and giving no fucks.”

Toni has always been attracted to Cheryl’s… _Cherylness_ , and that night had been no different.

She knew it was stupid, but she’d gotten caught up in the thrill of it and how hot it was that her girlfriend wasn’t afraid of Hiram Lodge; Toni had been thinking with everything but her brain - as she’s wont to do in Cheryl’s presence - and that’s nobody’s fault but her own.

Her girlfriend is so charismatic and unlike anyone Toni has ever met, and it can be easy to forget that sometimes Cheryl needs someone to reign her in - that sometimes Toni needs to have a level head and a steady hand to keep the other girl on the ground.

She’s not Cheryl’s babysitter, nor does she need one, but relationships are about balancing each other out and looking out for one another, and they’d both failed at that this time.

There’s no point in dwelling on it and assigning specific blame, though; all they can do is acknowledge their shortcomings, forgive, and vow to do better going forward.  

“I still wish I had dealt with everything better,” Cheryl insists, and Toni can’t disagree with her there. “But I was just so angry, and you know how I am.”

Toni cracks a small smile, because she, more than anyone, knows _exactly_ how Cheryl is and she loves her anyways - _because_ of it, most days; even today.

“I do,” she promises gently. “I know you, Cher; I know why you reacted the way you did. I know how pissed you were and why you lashed out, but more than that, I know how _upset_ you were.”

Cheryl didn’t show it the same way Toni did, because they’re not the same people, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t feel it, too.

She wasn’t _as_ upset, Toni knows and Cheryl would never claim otherwise, but that doesn’t make her upset any less important or real; no matter how much or how little of it either of them let show.

“I did care about the Serpents, you know that too, right?” Cheryl asks, desperate again. “I still do. I may not feel anywhere near the loyalty to the group at large as you and all your fellow snakes do, but I enjoyed being one, too.” Toni does know that - she _saw_ it. It might be messy now and she might have said some things in the heat of the moment, but Toni knows Cheryl’s heart as well as she knows her own, and she knows the lengths Cheryl goes to to protect it. “It was nice, to feel like part of something and to have a family, even though I know no one but you, and perhaps Cousin Betty, viewed me as theirs.”

Toni wishes she could tell Cheryl otherwise, and maybe she would have, before, but there’s little point now.

Cheryl’s right; the Serpents accepted her the way they accept Betty, but Toni knows them well enough to know they all had their reservations, and that there was probably little Cheryl could have ever done to prove herself to them otherwise.

It wasn’t ideal, from either side, but it had been enough to make Toni happy until the inevitable issue she probably always saw coming came to a head: “You just didn’t like taking orders from Jughead,” she finishes for her knowingly.

It makes Cheryl’s face scrunch up in the cutest way. “No, I did not,” she confirms steadily, because it’s the one thing she doesn’t regret, and Toni wouldn’t expect anything less. “He’s so obviously in over his head and not fit to lead and I-” Cheryl cuts herself off before she goes on a rant Toni would have probably mostly agreed with, and calms herself down. “I’m simply no good at feigning respect for those whom I have none for. I’m not sure why I ever thought I’d be capable of being a subordinate of that beanie wearing hobo.”

Toni’s not sure why she thought so, either.

She’d just wanted to bring Cheryl into her world so badly, the way Cheryl brought her into hers, that she hadn’t stopped to really consider if she’d fit.

It’s not the worst thing in the world that she didn’t - it’s good for couples to have their own things, after all - but Toni had really wanted her to, and for a while, she had, before-

“I really thought he’d be good for us, back when he first came to Southside High,” Toni admits, not for the first time; Cheryl’s not the only one that’s been less than impressed by Jughead’s leadership skills as of late. “I thought he was exactly what we needed, but he…” She never wanted to fully admit it before, at least not in so many words, but now? “You were right last night, he _is_ a hypocrite.”

Toni expects Cheryl to look pleased, giddy to hear her finally fully indulge her in her anti-Jughead stance, but when she looks at her girlfriend, all she sees is conflicted sympathy.

“Be that as it may,” Cheryl begins softly, delicately wrapping her fingers around Toni’s wrist so she can bring her hand from her cheek to her lips. “I know what the Serpents mean to you, regardless of their pathetic King, and I regret that my shortsightedness and, truthfully, my pride, cost you your family.”

“Cher,” Toni tries, wanting to say that her own shortsightedness and Jughead’s own pride are also to blame, but Cheryl doesn’t give her the chance.

“I wish I had the presence of mind last night to bargain on your behalf, at the very least,” she continues. “I shouldn’t have given over that hideous egg so easily without trying to get anything in return.”

Toni tries to imagine how that would have gone down - Cheryl using the egg as leverage to allow Toni to stay in the Serpents without her, and she doesn’t think she likes the scene playing out in her head.

Had it happened that way, she would have fought it, however half heartedly, but Toni thinks Cheryl would have been able to convince her to stay, if Jughead would have even allowed it.

Now though, in the light of morning, Toni’s glad she wasn’t given that choice to make.  

“Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t,” she muses, and the surprise on Cheryl’s face is obvious. “I’m a Serpent by blood, my family helped _form_ the Serpents - I shouldn’t have to beg to be part of it, or bargain for my spot, especially not to someone that just joined. I fucked up, yeah, I broke a _two day old_ rule, but _fuck_.”

Toni chokes back her tears again, the same way she did the night before, and Cheryl pulls her into her arms. “Love...”

“I really thought I meant more to them than that; he really kicked me out to save face, in front of _everyone_. And not a single one of them tried to stop him; not F.P., not Sweet Pea, not _Fangs_." Maybe Toni lost the right to be pissed at Fangs for that, considering what they did to him right after, but knowing Jughead, he's already welcomed him back with open arms, so it's hard for Toni to see past the way he sat there quietly while Jughead showed them none of the mercy he'd shown him. "They obviously don’t give as much of a shit about me as I do them, so maybe it’s for the best.”

And because Cheryl knows Toni just as well as she knows her, she doesn’t buy it. “You don’t mean that, love,” she mumbles against her forehead, lips pressing a kiss there after her words.

Maybe she doesn’t, but maybe she does, because if she’s honest, the last thing Toni’s thinking about right now is how to get back into the Serpents.

Someday soon, maybe; maybe she’ll think Jughead was in the right and she and Cheryl are the only ones that owe anyone any apologizes; maybe she’ll think Cheryl really is solely to blame; maybe she’ll just grow to resent the Serpents more for the way they disregarded her so easily.

Toni doesn’t know how she’ll feel about all this in a week, or two, considering how differently she feels after a night of restless sleep and time to calm down.

All Toni knows is how she feels right now, and _right now_ , Toni thinks of the Serpents and all she feels is _betrayed_ , and it’s hard to imagine that changing anytime soon.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s the truth. “Right now, I think I do.”

“I’m sorry, TT,” Cheryl whispers, long red fingernails lightly scratching up Toni’s arm as she looks down at her with the saddest, guiltiest eyes ever.

Toni truly doesn’t blame Cheryl, not in this moment, but she can’t pretend it isn’t good to hear, whatever way she means it.

“I know, Bombshell,” she sighs, because even if Cheryl isn’t solely to blame, the weight of it that she’s carrying right now is certainly heavier than Toni’s, and she already had so much weighing her down. “I’m sorry, too.”

There’s so much more to say, but that’s all they can handle right now, and it’s the most important, anyways.

The wounds are still too fresh and some of them will need time to heal over before anything can be done about them, but right now, Toni’s just glad they have each other.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many thoughts and theories on what Cheryl's motivations were and why she did basically everything she did, but I knew I'd get carried away, so I wanted to limit it to Toni's assumptions and point of view. Let me know what you think, and while I'd normally say no discourse in the comments, that would make me as big a hypocrite as Jughead, so please just keep it respectful if you insist.


End file.
